Putin’s nuclear threat is a magic trick, but a dangerous one

By Marc Champion

The key to all magic tricks is distraction, which is the best way to understand Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest round of nuclear saber rattling, including — if an as yet unverified report by Ukraine’s air force proves correct — Thursday’s first use of an intercontinental ballistic missile to hit a target in Ukraine.

ICBMs are primarily designed to carry nuclear warheads to targets thousands of miles away. This one would have carried conventional explosives for about 1000 kilometers (620 miles), from Astrakhan, at the northern tip of the Caspian Sea, to the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

There is a huge amount we don’t yet know, including precisely what was struck, which missile was used, and what damage and casualties were caused. What’s clear, however, is that this was a response to the American and British decisions to let Ukraine use the short-range ATACMS ballistic missiles and Storm Shadow cruise missiles against targets in Russia, and an attempt to give credibility to Putin’s currently threadbare nuclear threats.

This began several days ago, when Russian military bloggers began to suggest Moscow would deploy its modern and controversial RS-26 missile against Ukraine. Also known as the Rubezh, this weapon of potential mass destruction was designed expressly to blur the line between an ICBM and the shorter-range versions that were banned by the now defunct 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Russia began work on its RN-26 missile in 2011, using artificially light payloads in tests that went beyond the 5,500-kilometer threshold range for what was allowable at the time. The designed range of the Rubezh was about half that.

Russia has very few of these very expensive missiles and will not gut its nuclear deterrent by using a lot of them in Ukraine. So whatever the damaged caused, Thursday’s strike is less a harbinger of similar ICBM attacks to come than an attempt to convince European capitals and Washington that Putin really means it this time when he says he’s willing to turn this war into a nuclear conflict.

But it’s essential to retain perspective. We are not on the cusp of a nuclear conflagration. Putin talks up his massive nuclear arsenal because it has proved extraordinarily successful in getting the Biden administration and leaders in Europe to self-censor and slow-walk their aid to Ukraine. If he can now get Trump to frame peace talks as a question of whether Americans and Europeans would like: a) to avoid World War III and a nuclear Armageddon, or b) go on supporting Ukraine until it gets a sustainable deal, they will surely pick option A.

So, what conclusions to draw from all this? One is to stop fibrillating every time Putin talks about nuclear weapons. The amended public doctrine on nuclear usage that he signed this week was another signaling tool rather than an operational one, and removes none of the immense hurdles and costs involved in actually pushing the red button. The calculations around doing so didn’t add up when Russia was losing in Ukraine in 2022; they make less sense now when it’s winning and a more amenable US president is about to take office. Thursday’s apparent use of an ICBM would not change that.

If the nuclear noise is a distraction, Putin is with his other hand escalating the war in very concrete ways. That included deploying the North Korean troops and mid-range ballistic missiles that triggered Washington’s change of heart on ATACMS. On Monday, undersea cables connecting Sweden and Finland to Lithuania and Germany, respectively, were disrupted. Investigations are underway, but the base case must for now be Russian sabotage. Unlike the 2022 Nord Stream natural gas pipeline attack, it is hard to see who else would have motive.

In the meantime, Israel has been surprised by the quantity, sophistication and recent date of manufacture of Russian weapons they’ve been finding in Hezbollah arms caches in Lebanon. In Yemen, Moscow reportedly provided targeting data to help Houthi rebels hit commercial shipping in the Red Sea. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal and Reuters among others, the Kremlin also considered an Iranian-brokered deal to give the Houthis anti-ship missiles that might have threatened US warships. That didn’t happen at the time, but Putin has said very clearly that if Ukraine’s allies allowed it to use their cruise and ballistic missiles to hit Russia, he’d give enemies of the West the means to do the same. There’s no reason to doubt him.

Expect more of this, in particular attacks on undersea cables. Simple geography means that Russia, with a landmass that stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, doesn’t have or need a lot of them, while the West does. That creates an asymmetry of vulnerability that Russia, with one of the most capable fleets of deep-diving submarines that can reach other nations’ cables, is well placed to exploit.

Any conflict that distracts from Putin’s invasion, or draws down US military and financial resources such that these can’t be sent to Ukraine, works to his benefit. So he’s doing what he can, where he can, to create chaos and strain. Some of this is retaliatory, but mostly it’s part of his wider war effort and would be unlikely to end after a ceasefire in Ukraine. Putin has made no secret that his ultimate goal is to restore Russia to the international top table as a great power.

Yet the sudden reversal of US policy on ATACMS has alarmed him and does indeed make things more dangerous. The prospect that the next US president will try to force a quick end to the war makes it vital for both sides to ensure they’re in as strong a position as possible when the music stops. If Putin’s forces are no longer driving forward because Ukrainian drones, US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow cruise missiles are destroying Russian ammunition depots and energy infrastructure, he will be in a much weaker position to treat ceasefire negotiations as a venue to demand Kyiv’s surrender.

This is the bottom line. Putin is trying to claw back Russia’s territorial sway; he’s as reluctant to give up the power that comes with empire as were the British, French, Austrians and Ottomans before him. I don’t hear anybody suggesting the world would be a better place with Algeria still a French colony, or Hungary still ruled from Vienna. If those empires had been able to threaten the world if they didn’t get their way, you can be sure they would have. Yet none of this means Putin is ready to invite the radical risks and certain costs of a nuclear strike.